On-line advertising and content provision has grown tremendously since the inception of the Internet and on-line services. Users can access a wide variety of information associated with their interests by using the Internet and accessing Web sites generated by providers. A computer equipped with a program called a browser, such as Netscape Navigator from Netscape Corporation, makes it a simple task to traverse the vast network of information available on the Internet and, specifically, its subpart known as the “World Wide Web.”
The architecture of the Web follows a conventional client-server model. The terms “client” and “server” are used to refer to a computer's general role as a requester of data (the client) or provider of data (the server). Under the Web environment, Web browsers reside in clients and specially formatted “Web documents” reside on Internet (Web) servers. Web clients and Web servers communicate using a protocol called “HyperText Transfer Protocol” (HTTP).
In operation, a browser opens a connection to a server and initiates a request for a document or a Web page including content. The server delivers the requested document or Web page, typically in the form coded in a standard “HyperText Markup Language” (HTML) format. After the document or Web page is delivered, the connection is closed and the browser displays the document or Web page to the user.
The Internet consists of a worldwide computer network that communicates using well defined protocol known as the Internet Protocol (IP). Computer systems and servers that are directly connected to the Internet each have an unique address consisting of four numbers separated by periods such as “123.456.0.3”. To simplify Internet addressing, a “Domain Name System” was created that allows users to access Internet resources with a simpler alphanumeric naming system. For example, the name “capitalone.com” is the name for a computer system or Web server operated by Capital One®.
To further define the addresses of resources on the Internet, a Uniform Resource Locator system was created that uses a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) as a descriptor that specifically defines a type of Internet resource and its location. URLs have the following format: “resource-type://domain.address/path-name.” The “resource-type” defines the type of Internet resource. Web documents, for example, are identified by the resource type “http”, which indicates the protocol used to access the document.
To access a document on the Web, the user enters a URL for the Web document into a browser program executing on a client system with a connection to the Internet. The Web browser then sends a request in accordance with the HTTP protocol to the Web server that has the Web document using the URL. The Web server responds to the request by transmitting the requested object to the client. In most cases, the object is a plain text document containing text (in ASCII) that is written in HTML. Such objects often contain hyperlinks to other Web documents. The Web browser displays the HTML document on the screen for the user and the hyperlinks to other Web documents are emphasized in some fashion such that the user can select the hyperlink.
In some instances, the HTML document may contain data from more than one server. For example, remote text and images may be retrieved from remote servers and integrated into a Web document by a client system. One server may provide an image file, while another server may provide text information to the client system over a network such as the Internet. Different techniques are available to display these types of composite Web documents. For example, a program called a servlet executing on one of the servers may combine data from the various servers referenced in a selected Web document and transmit the composite Web document to the client. In other configurations, the client may utilize a program called an applet, which may be transmitted to the client from one of the servers, to access the multiple servers offering parts of the composite and to build the composite Web document.
Generally, users view the content delivered in the Web pages and may select hyperlinks to other sub pages of a Web site, or to entirely different Web sites. Providers associate the users “browsing” these Web pages as potential consumers for the products and services they provide. By simply providing a Web server having information on a providers' product and/or service offerings and a customer database, and linking the Web server to the Web, providers may track user interactions with the Web server including visits, sales, buying trends and product/service preferences—all at the user level. Providers may then present or offer its customers with products and services they are most likely to buy—on an individual basis. For this reason alone, most marketing professionals consider the Web to be one of the best direct marketing tools. In order to gain new or retain existing customers, providers need to ensure they present products and services that potential consumers are interested in. Accordingly, the importance of target advertising and target content provision has become an important role in the way providers conduct business over the Internet.
One conventional technique associated with target advertising is the use of advertising banners presented on existing Web pages generated by providers. When a user accesses a Web page associated with a provider, using a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, a banner advertising the provider's products or services appears on the Web page. This banner may be presented by the Web page's provider, or may be provided by a third party advertisement server. When an interested user selects the advertisement (by “clicking through” on the banner) the user is generally forwarded to another Web page or site associated with the advertisement. This page or site may be the third party advertiser's home page. The success of the advertisement is based upon the user's response, in this case, the user “clicking through” the advertisement or banner, to receive more information on the content advertised.
Another electronic advertising method employed is the local storing of advertisements on a user's local computer system, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,040, entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING AND DISPLAYING INFORMATION BETWEEN A REMOTE NETWORK AND A LOCAL COMPUTER,” and expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The method and system disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,040 not only allows advertisements to be displayed while a user reviews a web page, but the advertisements may also be presented when the user is not on-line and accessing a web site. Also, the user may select categories of advertisements to be displayed. The advertisements are transparently downloaded from a network server to a user's local computer system by a monitoring the traffic on a communications link associated with the user's computer system. When the utilization rate of the communications link is low, the network server “politely” pushes small portions of the advertisements to the user's computer system.
Although the system and method disclosed by the U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,040 may better target customers for advertisements than conventional systems by employing user controlled profiles, the advertisements themselves are generally statically designed, and merely present information describing goods and/or services the user's may or may not already have obtained.